Bruce Jackson's photo archive 9. Jas Tyler - glass facade

[BruceJackson]

These photos are stills taken from a very early piece of movie footage. It was shot in Ballarat, Victoria depicting a ride through the main street in a cable car.

It earns a place in my archive for this very unusual glass facade on a shopfront verandah. The shop has long gone, and I've never seen any other examples of glass signs like this. You can understand why. In a time when it probably wasn't toughened glass....with pedestrians underneath...

Has anyone else seen any more examples of glass facades signs like this?

I'm fairly confident the lettering is gold leaf judging by the way it reflects, but it's always hard to be 100% certain with old black and white images.

Another thing I note with these old signs is the very common use of abbreviations for first names...In this case Jas. short for James. I think that's worth a study in it's own right.

[Anthony Bennett]

Cracking stuff.
I have always wondered how stills are made from films on a computer, well done for doing it.

[BruceJackson]

Anthony,

I didn't extract stills from the footage on the computer, although if you want to do that, it's pretty easy with any video editing software.

My method was far less technical...I simply took photos of the screen in the museum while the footage was playing (it was running on an endless loop). That's why there is some blurring and a double image. It flashed past very quickly and it was hard to get a clear crisp shot.

I would have like to get the actual footage and get proper stills from it, but doing that required negotiating with the museum staff which was going to mean making appointments, explaining why I want it, agreeing to their terms for use and possibly paying money. I just photograph these things when and where I find them.